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Transport Scotland recently published its consultation document on the future of rail services in the country. Scotland’s passenger railways are broadly a £1bn a year business with 26% of revenue coming from passengers and the remainder from tax payers – of whom a minority are also rail users. (This covers just Scotrail operations and excludes cross border services provided by other operators as well as rail freight.)

The consultation document raises the question of what should be the balance between rail users and taxpayers in terms of paying for rail services. The implication being that the present split is not seen as equitable. The recent funding of London’s Crossrail (whilst an infrastructure project) provides an interesting precedent about how rail services might be funded with its a third, a third, a third funding package. That is a third of the money comes from users, a third from businesses and a third from general taxes. The logic behind this funding arrangement is broadly as follows. Passengers obviously benefit from the service so should contribute to it. Businesses (ie employers) in locations served by the rail network benefit from being able to draw upon a larger labour pool to recruit from which reduces wages and improves competitiveness while not having to provide so much car parking. Whilst the general public benefits from a reduced number of cars on the road network, so benefits from less congestion and pollution as well as reducing the need to invest in new road infrastructure.

So what would be the implications of such a funding regime in Scotland? If passengers were to pay a third of the cost of services this would require (all other things being equal) fares to rise by 27%. If we assume that such a funding package were to be phased in over say a five year period this would require annual real fare rises of 2.5% if passenger numbers also grew at 2.5%. This would mean that the present average single fare of £3.30 per single trip would increase to £3.70 in present prices by year 5.

The second source of funding, from businesses, could be based on the French “versement transport” which is a hypothecated local tax levied on the total gross salaries of employees. In France the rate varies by area and is applicable only to companies of more than nine employees. It is highest in Paris where the rate is 2.6%. To keep it simple in this example we have assumed the levy will be paid by everyone employed in those local authority Districts where at least 4% of the workforce commute to work by rail and that the levy will need to raise £330m a year. Based on the 640,000 people employed in these Districts and average wages within them this would equate to a levy on wages of 1.9%. In the context of France this a high levy especially as it only covers national rail services and few employers benefit from their staff commuting by rail.

The balance of funding would come from general taxpayers and in this third/third/third model would see a reduction in the amount sought per household from £315 per household now down to £140 per household.

The above analysis highlights some of the issues of rail funding in Scotland. It is difficult to see how the “a third, a third, a third funding package” could work given the high level of contribution required from employers in relation to the low number of rail commuters. However, even with considerable above inflation fare increases and assumed growth in rail patronage it is difficult to see passenger revenues covering much more than a third of operating costs.

This suggests, that if the present funding split is not acceptable, the need to identify either new sources of finance or to significantly reduce costs including closures to improve the financial sustainability of Scotland’s passenger rail services.

The review by Sir Roy McNulty, former Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority and Board member of the Olympic Delivery Authority, was billed as the biggest shake-up in the rail industry since privatisation in the 1990s. Following publication of his Summary Report, what are the implications for passengers and taxpayers?

European benchmarking indicates that both passengers and taxpayers are paying 30% more than those in other countries. McNulty believes that the industry should be aiming for a 30% reduction in unit costs for GB railways (per passenger km) by the end of the next control period (2018/19). He has not looked at possible cuts to the network as a means of achieving this reduction, thus avoiding any comparisons to Beeching but potentially missing an opportunity to look at whether certain rail lines and services are the best way of addressing the public’s transport needs in rural areas. He concludes that rail fares are too high, and so has not considered further increasing fares to provide additional support to the industry.

His key recommendations can be summarised as:

Development of clearer definitions of the roles of Government and industry

DfT to analyse how its subsidy is being used – in particular what is it paying for and does it meet DfT objectives?

Establishment of a Rail Delivery Group from Network Rail, TOCs, freight and other stakeholders to lead a ‘programme of change’ based on the recommendations

Less prescriptive franchising (already underway) plus consideration of price-based specifications, up-front payments instead of performance bonds and a review of the franchise map with a possible ‘Northern Region’

Decentralisation and devolution within NR (already underway) to support comparative regulation of route-level units

A pilot scheme for vertical integration (possibly Greater Anglia) and two joint ventures/alliances where TOCs and NR work together

Cost and revenue sharing across all TOCs and NR

Potential for all subsidy for NR to be channelled through access charges making it more transparent where the costs are borne

ORR to take on an expanded role of the ‘single industry regulator’ including regulation of franchises

DfT to undertake a full review of fares policy and structures, with a view to a system that is less complex and aids the management of peak demand within the boundary of revenue neutrality

Improvements in asset management, programme and project management, and supply chain management – including involvement of the private sector earlier in projects with wider use of partnering approaches

Review of many aspects of staffing and working practices, overheads and administration including Driver Only Operation as standard unless there is a commercial or technical reason for additional staff

Increased standardisation and more effective procurement of rolling stock

Pilot approaches to reducing the costs of less intensively used networks

Did we get the big shake-up we were expecting? No, what we have got are a lot of small changes rather than a few significant ones. It is a glacial change rather than a tsunami. But if a 30% (£1bn per annum) reduction in unit costs can be delivered in less than eight years, then the industry will have moved towards the performance of its European neighbours and the taxpayer will be feeling a bit happier as well. Now it is over to the DfT, who will be preparing a White Paper in the autumn of this year which will include some (or all) of the recommendations.

Privatisation failed to deliver what it has done in other industries, that is, provided transparency over the cost of providing the service. The rail industry today is a financial merry-go-round and DfT grants to NR make it impossible to see the drivers of high costs. Hopefully McNulty’s suggestions, for all NR subsidy to go via access charges and DfT to review where its subsidy is being spent, will provide the transparency required to challenge industry costs in more detail and lead to better decision making on where rail subsidies are spent.

Edinburgh-Glasgow rail improvement programme, including electrification of much of the central Scotland network and more frequent and faster journeys between Glasgow and Edinburgh

Other rail proposals are to improve connections between Inverness and Aberdeen and between these cities and the central belt. The SNP also intends to make representation to the UK government for the reintegration of rail services in Scotland with the aim of making the delivery of rail services more efficient for the benefit of rail users in Scotland.

Other plans are to progress a new integrated ticketing system and invest in ferries. The Road Equivalent Tariff will continue on the current routes and they will look to roll this out to Argyll and Bute.

The investment in the Southern General Hospital, the Commonwealth Games and school, college and healthcare building programmes will also have implications for transport infrastructure.

The Future Transport Fund has already been launched by the SNP. This is a £50m fund to invest in projects which improve connectivity whilst reducing CO2 emissions -Scotland has a target to reduce emissions by 42% by 2020. It will be paid for through efficiency savings from the negotiation of the Forth Crossing contract.

This note covers the main planning and transport issues arising from today’s budget

Planning reform

Government will:

introduce a new presumption in favour of sustainable development, so that the default answer to development is ‘yes’;

localise choice about the use of previously developed land, removing nationally imposed targets while retaining existing controls on greenbelt land;

pilot a land auction model, starting with public sector land;

introduce a number of measures to streamline the planning applications and related consents regimes removing bureaucracy from the system and speeding it up. This will include a 12 month guarantee for the processing of all planning applications, including any appeals;

ensure a fast-track planning process for major infrastructure applications through the Major Infrastructure Planning system; and

consult on proposals to make it easier to convert commercial premises to residential.

To accelerate the release of public sector land to support homes and jobs, Government will work with local authorities to expedite planning decisions for surplus military land and other public sites suitable for housing, also testing ’build now, pay later’ techniques to quicken delivery. Together with the new presumption in favour of sustainable development, these proposals will potentially allow the Ministry of Defence to realise up to £350 million of estate disposals and enable delivery of up to 20,000 new homes by 2014-15.

Enterprise zones

Government announces the location of ten new urban Enterprise Zones within the following Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) areas: Birmingham and Solihull; Leeds City Region; Shefﬁeld City Region; Liverpool City Region; Greater Manchester; West of England; Tees Valley; North Eastern; the Black Country; and Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. In addition, London will have an Enterprise Zone and be able to choose its site.

The Government will also launch a competitive process for interested LEPs to establish ten more Enterprise Zones.

The Government will make a range of policy tools available to all 21 zones:

a 100 per cent business rate discount worth up to £275,000 over a ﬁve year period for businesses that move into an Enterprise Zone during the course of this Parliament;

all business rates growth within the zone for a period of at least 25 years will be retained and shared by the local authorities in the LEP area to support their economic priorities;

Government and local authority help to develop radically simpliﬁed planning approaches in the zone; and

Government support to ensure superfast broadband is rolled out in the zone. This will be achieved through guaranteeing the most supportive planning environment and, if necessary, public funding.

LEPS

Government will work with individual LEPs to consider:

the scope for introducing enhanced capital allowances to support zones in assisted areas where there is a strong focus on high value manufacturing;

the use of Tax Incremental Finance to support the long-term viability of the zone, in tandem with the Local Government Resource Review; and

UKTI support on inward investment and trade opportunities.

Government will work with the devolved administrations to explore opportunities for employing the new Enterprise Zone model across the UK.

The Regional Growth Fund was set up to support private sector growth in the areas most dependent on the public sector. The Government will conﬁrm all successful bids shortly and will launch the second round in April 2011.

Housing

The Budget provides help for homeowners and new buyers, and supports the capacity of the house-building industry to ensure a more efﬁcient housing market:

the Government will help homeowners facing difﬁculties by extending for a further year temporary changes to the Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) scheme. The 13-week waiting period and £200,000 limit on eligible mortgage capital will now remain in force for new working age SMI claimants until January 2013;

the Government will provide £250 million to support ﬁrst time buyers to purchase a new-build property. The FirstBuy programme will assist over 10,000 households with equity investments jointly funded with house-builders; and

the Government will strengthen demand for residential property by reforming the stamp duty land tax rules applied to bulk purchases. This will reduce a barrier to investment in residential property, promoting private rented housing supply.

The Government will announce the outcome of its review of the stamp duty land tax relief for ﬁrst time buyers in autumn 2011.

Government will make Real Estate Investment Trusts easier to set up and more accessible to investors. This will encourage investment in the private rented sector over the longer term.

Motoring

In recognition of high current oil prices, fuel duty will be cut by 1 penny per litre from 6pm today. The Government will abolish the fuel duty escalator and replace it with a fair fuel stabiliser. When oil prices are high, as now, fuel duty will increase by inﬂation only.

In addition, to ease the burden on motorists, the 2011-12 inﬂation-only increase in fuel duty will be deferred to 1 January 2012. The 2012-13 increase in fuel duty will be implemented on 1 August 2012.

In future years, if the oil price falls below a set trigger price on a sustained basis, the Government will reduce the Supplementary Charge back towards 20 per cent on a staged and affordable basis while prices remain low. Fuel duty will increase by RPI plus 1 penny per litre in each such year. The Government believes that a trigger price of $75 per barrel would be appropriate, and will set a ﬁnal level and mechanism after seeking the views of oil and gas companies, and motoring groups

The Government has today formally submitted a derogation request to the European Commission for a rural fuel duty rebate pilot scheme. This is intended to deliver a 5 pence per litre duty discount on petrol and diesel across the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, the islands in the Clyde and the Isles of Scilly

Air Passenger Duty

In the June Budget 2010, the Government undertook to explore changes to the aviation tax system, including switching from a per-passenger to a per-plane duty. The UK’s international obligations in this area include Air Service Agreements with over 150 different countries and the 1944 Chicago Convention. The Government will not introduce a per-plane duty at the present time, given concerns over the legality and feasibility of this approach. The Government will start a programme of intensive work with our international partners to build consensus for a perplane duty in the future.

The Government is launching a consultation on reform of Air Passenger Duty. The Government wants a simple tax system for air transport services which does not hamper growth, which ensures a fair contribution toward the public ﬁnances and which will support the reduction of global emissions. The consultation includes plans to extend the tax system to ﬂights taken aboard business jets for the ﬁrst time. The Government will also freeze Air Passenger Duty rates for 2011-12, with the RPI increase assumed in the forecast deferred to April 2012.

Other transport

Budget announces £200 million of new funding for rail projects and £100 million of funding for local authorities to repair potholes caused by the exceptionally cold winter, funded from within existing budgets. This is in addition to the £100 million announced in February 2011.

In all the analysis undertaken using the station usage data published by the ORR I have yet to see anything on rail use by head of population. The ORR helpfully categorises every station by a number of spatial levels ranging from Government Office to unitary authority although they have not kept pace with the latest council changes. Whilst there is a fundamental issue that rail usage in some locations is inflated because certain locations, especially the inner London boroughs, receive a lot of inward commuters (or have other attractions such as airports), it is still a useful indicator of rail’s importance across the country.

The analysis set out here is based on unitary authorities split up into four groups based on their population but excluding London boroughs. The population groups are; over 400,000, 200-400,000, 100-200,000 and under 100,000.

So starting out with those unitaries with a population of over 400,000; rail usage per person ranges from 15.2 trips a year in Kirklees to over a 100 in Liverpool and Glasgow. Manchester achieves double the figure for Leeds which in turn is double that of Sheffield. Some cities obviously have a far more intensive rail network than others but it is perhaps still surprising that Edinburgh achieves a higher rail usage figure than Leeds or Birmingham given their respective rail services.

Table 1: Rail use per head of population – unitaries >400,000

Glasgow

106.7

Liverpool

106.2

Manchester

74.6

Edinburgh

47.9

Birmingham

46.9

Leeds

35

Bradford

24.6

Bristol

20.5

Sheffield

17.8

Kirklees

15.2

Taking those local authorities with a population of between 200,000-400,000 again shows some interesting differences across the country. Discounting those authorities such as Sunderland and Trafford that are principally served by trams/light rail and Oldham which lost its rail service during the year (being converted to a Manchester Metrolink service); rail usage ranges from 4 to 75 trips per person a year. The ten authorities with the highest rail use are shown in table 2. Interestingly they are spread across the country including Merseyside, the Glasgow commuter belt, West Midlands, Cardiff and the South Coast.

Table 2: Rail use per head of population (ten highest) – unitaries 200 – 400,000

Brighton and Hove

74.9

Sefton

63.5

Wirral

59.5

Cardiff

50.1

Solihull

39.3

Medway

34.5

Portsmouth

32.9

Southampton

26.2

Newcastle upon Tyne

25.2

South Lanarkshire

24.4

At the other end of scale there are perhaps some surprising entries amongst the authorities with the lowest rail usage. Whilst it is no surprise to see the rural areas of Aberdeenshire, North Somerset and the East Riding of Yorkshire in the list, the inclusion of authorities in the West Midlands, South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester might be. In part this reflects the patchy rail network in some of our largest city regions.

Table 3: Rail use per head of population (ten lowest) – unitaries 200 – 400,000

Aberdeenshire

4.0

Walsall

4.0

Rotherham

4.4

Dudley

6.8

East Riding of Yorkshire

6.9

Kingston upon Hull

8.2

Stoke-On-Trent

8.6

North Somerset

8.9

Plymouth

9.0

Salford

9.2

Moving down in size to those authorities with a population between 100-200,000, those authorities with the highest rail use per person are now firmly in the London commuter belt. Crawley, which contains Gatwick Airport, stands out from the rest.

Table 4: Rail use per head of population (ten highest) – unitaries 100 – 200,000

Crawley

165.1

Reading

97.4

Elmbridge

89.3

Southend-on-Sea

78.5

Guildford

78

St. Albans

65.9

Cambridge

63.3

Mid Sussex

62.1

Windsor and Maidenhead

61.7

Reigate and Banstead

57.1

Ignoring Gateshead, which is served by the Tyne and Wear Metro and Epping Forest which is served by the London Underground, those authorities with the lowest level of rail use in this population band tend to have few rail services to begin with and tend to be fairly rural locations.

Table 5: Rail use per head of population (ten lowest) – unitaries 100 – 200,000

Powys

3.5

North Lincolnshire

3.1

East Lindsey

3

Hinckley and Bosworth

2.6

Rushcliffe

2.1

Broadland

2

Mendip

1.1

Newcastle-under-Lyme

0.8

Vale of White Horse

0.7

Gedling

0.6

Moving on to the smallest authorities, those with a population less than 100,000 the highest levels of rail usage per head of population are again found in the London commuter belt with one representative from Glasgow’s commuter belt.

Table 6: Rail use per head of population (ten highest) – unitaries <100,000

Woking

101.8

Epsom and Ewell

85.7

Brentwood

82.4

Uttlesford

79.5

Tandridge

61.1

Mole Valley

58

Dartford

57.8

Hertsmere

56.4

Watford

55

West Dunbartonshire

51.4

The smaller authorities with the lowest rail use are an interesting mix. They include Corby which for a long time claimed to be the largest town in Britain without a rail service. The reinstated service has led to a reasonable level of rail use but it is still relatively low. The other locations are fairly rural in nature but are spread across the country.

Table 7: Rail use per head of population (ten lowest) – unitaries <100,000

South Northamptonshire

0.4

Staffordshire Moorlands

0.5

South Derbyshire

0.6

Oadby and Wigston

0.8

Tewkesbury

0.8

West Devon

0.9

North East Derbyshire

1.2

Forest of Dean

1.6

Corby

2.1

Bolsover

2.2

Taking all unitary authorities and including the London boroughs, it is no surprise that with the exception of Crawley the remaining boroughs in the top 10 rail usage per head of population are London boroughs especially those with main line rail termini located within them and those south of the river which have limited London Underground services.

Table 8: Rail use per head of population (ten highest) – all unitaries

Lewisham

128

Richmond upon Thames

130

Kingston upon Thames

139

Wandsworth

153

Crawley

165

Southwark

223

Camden

358

Lambeth

439

Westminster

592

City of London

9,620

It is clear that rail use across the country varies considerably; influenced by history and its impact on the shape of the rail network, the extent to which authorities are centres of employment for a wider catchment area or are sources of workers for those centres and or the degree to which authorities are broadly self contained with relatively little in or out commuting or links to other areas outside their immediate locality.

Type “London”, “parking” and “cash cow” into Google and you will get a staggering 318,000 results. The perception is clear: London’s town halls are milking the motorists for ever more money year on year. To get a more objective view we have reviewed the last three years of local authorities’ annual expenditure and revenue returns to central government to see exactly how much money councils raise from parking charges and perhaps more interestingly how those amounts have changed from the long forgotten boom times of 2007-8 through to the deep recession period of 2009-10.

In 2009-10, motorists paid a total of £540m to London’s councils for parking, equivalent to £180 for every vehicle registered in London. This is actually a reduction on previous years and is down by £17m since 2007-8. However, this reduction in parking revenue is not uniform with massive variations across London. So while Lambeth has increased parking revenues by nearly £14m over the last three years, Westminster has seen a reduction of nearly £20m. In fact, nine boroughs saw their revenue rise by least £1m over this period while twelve saw a fall in over £1m. In general it is the inner London Boroughs that have seen the largest falls in revenues with the outer boroughs seeing the biggest increases.

Total revenues earned from parking 2009-10 and change over 2007-8 (top 5 increases)

Income £’000

change over 2007-8 £’000

Lambeth

44,006

13,556

Richmond upon Thames

12,111

4,839

Lewisham

8,411

2,730

Barking & Dagenham

5,540

2,424

Waltham Forest

9,940

2,044

Total revenues earned from parking 2009-10 and change over 2007-8 (top 5 decreases)

Income £’000

change over 2007-8 £’000

Islington

28,959

-3,821

Kensington & Chelsea

37,557

-4,004

Hackney

13,186

-4,144

Camden

41,041

-5,884

Westminster

83,405

-19,774

However, while the motorist is concerned with how much money they hand over to their councils, local authority treasurers are more interested in knowing whether parking actually makes a profit or not. Because out of the money raised councils have to pay for parking enforcement and maintenance of their car parks.

Rather worryingly for those treasurers and perhaps even more so for London’s council tax payers, is that while parking in London as whole is profitable it has become less so in the last three years. Total London wide operating profits (before allowing for capital expenditures) from parking in 2009-10 were £180m down from £207m in 2007-8.

In fact the amount of profit made per council is with a few exceptions relatively small, for most being under £5m a year. Only five inner London councils (Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, Wandsworth and Camden) now make more than £10m a year from their parking operations.

As with income London Boroughs have seen large swings in the profits they make. So Lambeth have turned a loss in 2007-8 to a small profit in 2009-10 while Camden and Westminster have seen profits fall by over £10m.

Every year the ORR publishes station usage data which provides a fascinating insight into use of the rail sector. The latest figures for 2009-10 have just been published and while they come with some caveats about the reliability of the data they are still worthy of analysis.

According to the data 2.13billion entries and exits were made through 2,525 stations (that is 1.065bn people used the network) in 2009-10. That is down by 0.8% over 2008-9 which is not bad given the severity of the recession but there are huge discrepancies across the network as well as massive variances between stations.

So while some 100 million movements were made in, out and interchanging at London Waterloo and Waterloo East, Coombe in Devon achieved only 42. And this discrepancy between stations is one of the first factors that strikes you. The least used 800 stations handle only 1% of the passengers on the network begging the question as to whether the present McNulty review will grasp the nettle and suggest the widespread closure of such lightly used stations.

It is clear that the recession has impacted the various parts of the country and their train operating companies (TOCs) in very different ways. The following council areas saw increases of more than 10% in patronage: Aberdeenshire, Ceredigion, Stoke-on-Trent, Clackmannan, Torfaen, Cumbria (helped by the free rail service and temporary station at Workington North to link the two sides of Workington which were severed by the loss of the road bridge over the River Derwent in November 2009) and Merthyr Tydfil. While North Rutland and Luton saw a 10% reduction in patronage (the later impacted by the collapse in charter passengers at Luton Airport).

Looking at rail use at a county level throws up some surprises. Whilst the dominance of Greater London is not unexpected, perhaps the large numbers travelling in the UK’s major conurbations compared to the London commuter belt challenges some commentators perceptions that rail is solely important in London and the south east.

Number of rail journeys starting and or finishing by county

Greater London

947,569,166

Merseyside

90,328,997

West Midlands

72,975,586

Surrey

70,962,895

Glasgow City

62,805,723

Greater Manchester

59,445,096

West Yorkshire

54,195,470

Hertfordshire

50,294,234

Kent

50,257,974

Essex

48,526,498

So who in this analysis are the winners and losers among the TOCs. The numbers going through Virgin’s station is still being helped by the step change in service on the West Coast Main Line while Chiltern and C2C reap the benefits of their highly performing services. The other London TOCs have not performed so well hit by a downturn the economy which is also evident by the small reduction going through Network Rail stations where the numbers are dominated by the London termini. Traffic in Wales and Scotland seemed to have done well unlike in Merseyside where passenger numbers have markedly fallen. Finally spare a thought for Prestwick Airport the privately owned station serving the airport which like Luton has been badly hit by a reduction in airline passengers.

Number of rail journeys starting and or finishing by TOC managed stations